


Marble Halls

by MildredMost



Series: Expectations [2]
Category: Dickensian (TV)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-03
Updated: 2016-03-03
Packaged: 2018-05-24 12:26:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6153698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MildredMost/pseuds/MildredMost
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mr Jaggers rescues Arthur from the roof AND CERTAIN DEATH. Because he's the best.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marble Halls

Mr Jaggers stood quietly in the dark of the midnight street and looked at the locket that Frances Barbary had just handed him. He felt utterly exhausted. He closed his fist over this new secret, and his eyes over his muddled thoughts. 

He would take a walk, he decided. Clear his head. Decide what was the correct thing to do. 

The Three Cripples looked warm and inviting as he turned out of the dark alleyway and onto the high street. He could hear the piano tinkling away, accompanied by bursts of singing and laughter. He thought for a moment about a warming sherry, or a glass of wine. Too many clients in there, he concluded wryly, offering drinks in return for free advice. He began to turn away. 

He did not know what made him look up at the roof then, but he did. 

And the world stood still. 

Mr Jaggers had always felt a sense of disbelief when clients had described their ‘heart leaping into their mouth’, dismissing it as hysteria. Yet that is exactly what his heart did then as he realised what he was looking at. Arthur Havisham, unconscious on the roof, slumped against a chimney stack. 

For a moment he swayed on the spot, thought he might black out. _He must get help, he...what if Compeyson had...? Help first, just get someone..._

At last his body obeyed him and he burst into the Three Cripples. There was Bill Sykes, thank God. 

“Mr...Mr Sykes. I require your assistance,” he managed, his voice failing him on his first attempt. 

Bill Sykes stood, gently tipping a young woman from his lap, and followed Jaggers to the stairs. Jaggers found something comforting in his bulk and his silence, and began to regain his composure. 

“Mr Havisham is injured on the roof and I cannot get him down alone,” Jaggers began, wrenching open the door at the back of the pub which led to Arthur’s lodgings. 

“Ain’t that the young gempleman who likes a taste of brandy?” said a voice behind him, and Mrs Gamp appeared from the shadows. “No doubt the poor soul will be in need of a nurse.” 

Mr Jaggers ignored her - he’d be damned if he’d let the old soak anywhere near Arthur - but she followed them up the stair, calling to Silas Wegg as she went. 

Bill opened the door to the lodgings with a practiced kick and was across to the window in a trice; Mr Jaggers could barely keep up with him. With a grunt Bill heaved himself up and over the windowsill and disappeared from sight. A moment later he was back, Arthur slung across his shoulders. 

Mr Jaggers and Silas helped to drag the unconscious boy back inside. 

“Place him on the bed Mr Sykes. Thank you.” Bill slung Arthur down with an unceremonious thump and rubbed the back of his neck. 

Mr Jaggers took a deep breath of relief and looked Arthur over as he lay sprawled across the bed. The deep shadows under his eyes were purplish, especially in contrast with the pallor of his face. His hands were filthy and one was bleeding, and he stank to high heaven of brandy.  But his chest rose and fell regularly and he did not seem to be badly injured in any way. 

Mr Jaggers looked around the room. The bed was sour and creased, all the surfaces dirty and cluttered with used glasses, empty bottles. Arthur could not recover here. 

“Send someone for my carriage,” Jaggers said quietly to Silas Wegg who lingered at the door. 

“He’s cold as death,” said Mrs Gamp, holding Arthur’s hands, as the sound of Silas’s wooden leg upon the stairs receded. “He’d have died of enclosure if you hadn’t seen him. He needs someone to smuggle up to him, warm him up.” 

“Don’t look to me,” said Bill Sykes. 

“Help me sit him up at least, if you’d be so dispoged,” she said and Bill heaved Arthur up, head nodding down against his chest. 

After a moment’s hesitation, Jaggers sat upon the bed next to Arthur and allowed Mrs Gamp and Bill to lean the boy against him. He took off his greatcoat and wrapped it around Arthur hoping that the heat from it would begin to rouse him, keeping his arm around him to hold it there. 

Arthur opened his eyes at last, and rolled his head back onto Jagger’s shoulder, smiling up at him. 

“Mr Jaggers, you have come to save me,” he said, and laughed. 

“I hope that I am saving you from nothing worse than a drunken adventure on the roof,” said Mr Jaggers severely. 

“It was the song. The one the girl in the Three Cripples sings,” Arthur murmured. 

“Arthur I am afraid you are making little sense.” 

“ _I had riches all too great to count_ ,” Arthur sang tunelessly, “ _And a high ancestral name…_ ” 

“My Nancy, he’s talking of,” Bill said. Jaggers nodded at him. 

“I couldn’t bear it. Any of it. I have had enough, Mr Jaggers,” Arthur said into Mr Jaggers’ neck, but quietly enough that he went unheard by their companions. “I do not want this life any more.” 

He seemed to drift into unconsciousness again, his body relaxing against Mr Jaggers chest. 

“Well sir,” said Mrs Gamp. “It’s a blessing you discovered the young gempleman before any more harm became him.” She edged towards the fireplace. “And I’ll just take this brandy bottle from the chimbly piece here, for it is my opinion as a nurse that no more liquor should pass his lips.” 

Mr Jaggers pressed his lips together against a smile. “Perhaps you could dispose of it for us Mrs Gamp.” 

“I will do my best sir, a sober creature such as I am. I can never do more than just take a taste of brandy, to strengthen my nerve,” she said solemnly and secreted the bottle in her skirts in a flash. 

A boy appeared at the door. “Mister Wegg sez the carriage is here,” he said. 

“If you could assist me Mr Sykes,” Mr Jaggers said, preparing to stand. But Bill came over and lifted Arthur up over his shoulder like a sack of coal, as though he weighed nothing at all. Not the most dignified way to travel, Mr Jaggers thought, but the boy was beyond caring. 

The street outside had become murky with a curling, freezing fog, dulling the sounds of the revellers and dimming the gas-lamps to a dull green. Mr Jaggers shivered for lack of his coat and was grateful that his driver had left a blanket on the seat of the carriage. Arthur roused a little again as Bill bundled him in after him, but then gently collapsed across Mr Jaggers’ lap and slept on. Mr Jaggers leant through the window and handed Bill a generous tip, before rapping the roof of the carriage with his cane to let the driver know he was ready to depart. 

Good God. Mr Jaggers could not have imagined a more unlikely end to Amelia Havisham’s wedding day had he tried for a year. And having Arthur Havisham sprawled in his lap, rocking in the sway of the carriage, was more disturbing that he could say. 

In truth, he had been harbouring thoughts about Arthur ever since the elder Mr Havisham had summoned Mr Jaggers to Satis House and told him what he had caught his son up to with Jaggers’ clerk.  In his own study, by God, he had blustered, on top of their new contract with the East India Trading company. He had not even finished reading it and now it was all crumpled and a deal of it smudged. What do you say to that, sir? 

His clerk Philip had always been bold and mischievous and a little too free with his affections, Mr Jaggers reflected, though he doubted that Arthur had objected to that. It had been inconvenient to let Philip go, he was a very good clerk. But more inconvenient than being summoned to an angry client, or than recruiting a new clerk, were the thoughts he began to have about Mr Havisham’s son and heir. 

The carriage paused for a moment as a street sweeper scrambled out of the way and Mr Jaggers wrapped an arm around Arthur to prevent him sliding off of the carriage seat. 

Yes, Arthur had gone from being the slightly wild, extravagant, riotous son of a client, to an unsettling presence both in Mr Jaggers’ working day, and his nightly dreams. 

Mr Jaggers never could resist the badly behaved ones. 

All his entanglements over the years had been with men who sailed very close to the wind when it came to abiding by the law. Behind his sober facade, Mr Jaggers enjoyed nothing more than being seduced by a man with a wicked glint in his eye and a desperate need of help with his gambling debts. It was a terrible weakness and one he had managed to keep exceedingly quiet. And very much apart from his professional life. 

But around Arthur, he admitted to himself, his strictly drawn lines had become blurred. He had never wanted to _save_ one of these men before. 

The worst of it had been when Arthur had turned up at his office at 10 o’clock one morning a couple of weeks ago, dishevelled, arrogant and drunk. He had read him the riot act that day and sent him off cowed and furious, but in reality he had wanted to seize Arthur by the front of his coat, pull him up against himself, and… 

Instead he had washed his hands over and over to stop himself following the impulse. 

The carriage drew up in front of Mr Jaggers house at last, and the driver alighted. He rang the bell and after some minutes his housekeeper Molly came to the door in her dressing gown and curl-papers. 

“What is this, Mr Jaggers?” she said, holding her candle aloft. 

“Do not concern yourself Molly. Young Mr Havisham is unwell and will be staying with us tonight.” 

Molly, God bless her unflappable soul, was well used to all sorts of reprobates turning up at Mr Jaggers’ door. One drunken young man was barely to be blinked at.

“Let us bring him inside then,” she said. 

Molly was a tiny creature but extraordinarily strong, and between her, Mr Jaggers and the driver, they managed to bear the still unconscious Arthur upstairs. 

“Put him in my room for now,” said Mr Jaggers. “It is late and there is not another bed made up. I can sleep here in the armchair.” 

“Of course sir,” said Molly. “I will make you both a fire.” 

Arthur was beginning to awaken and Mr Jaggers pulled a chair to the side of the bed to attend to him. 

“Molly, fetch hot water. When he awakes he is likely to be indisposed.” 

As Mr Jaggers had wagered, Arthur sat up and was violently ill. Jaggers sat with him and held the basin for him, a hand on his back, until Arthur had finished. 

Afterwards Jaggers helped the shaking boy to wash his mouth and clean his teeth, then let him slump back against the pillows as Molly returned with hot water and soap and a wash cloth. 

She washed his face and hands of the cold sweat he had broken out in using Mr Jaggers own scented soap. Arthur lifted his hands to his face and breathed them in. 

“It is your soap,” Arthur said. “You always smell of it. Such a comforting smell.” 

“Here is a fresh nightshirt for him, sir,” said Molly and made to help him off with his shirt. 

Mr Jaggers saw Arthur hesitate and dismissed her. 

“Thank you. Leave it here and Mr Havisham can put it on when he is ready.” 

Molly left the room. Mr Jaggers stood and turned away from Arthur, under the pretence of relighting a candle on the mantlepiece and stirring the fire. He glanced up at the mirror over the mantle and saw Arthur slip his stained shirt over his head and reach for the clean one. 

Jaggers’ stomach lurched to see the barely healed welts on Arthur’s back. My God, the boy looked as though he had been flogged. And how thin he had become, with every rib visible. As Arthur turned slightly to put on the clean clothing, Jaggers’ saw a row of bruises running down his neck, dark and vicious looking. There were faint bruises all over Arthur now he came to notice; around his wrists, on his left shoulder; just under his jaw. He swallowed, his mouth dry at the sight. 

As Arthur sat back among the pillows, Mr Jaggers fought to command his emotions for the second time that night. His mind raced with thoughts of Compeyson’s strong, muscled body against Arthur’s slim one, for surely it could only have been he who had treated Arthur so violently. How frightened he must have been. And another, quieter voice suggested that perhaps Arthur enjoyed such treatment. This thought disturbed him so much, in multiple ways, that he bit down hard on his forefinger to distract himself. 

“I wish you would not bite your finger at me, Mr Jaggers,” Arthur said with a wry smile. “It usually means you are exceedingly cross with me.” 

“If I am, I have just cause to be,” said Jaggers. “I had thought; after we spoke this morning…” 

“That I would reform?” 

“That you would at least try.” 

“I did try,” Arthur said, a hint of petulance entering his voice. “I confessed to it all. I gave back the money, I begged forgiveness. She wouldn’t hear me.” 

“What you and Compeyson planned - it was remarkably cruel Arthur. You must see that. It may take more than one attempt to mend things with her.” 

Arthur picked at a thread on the bedclothes. 

“Whatever made you think of it?” 

“It was him. Compeyson. I was so...he made it seem so reasonable. And he is very persuasive.” 

He glanced up at Mr Jaggers defiantly, his brown eyes almost black in the dim light. 

“You are old enough to think for yourself.” 

Arthur continued to look at Jaggers and Jaggers looked squarely back at him. 

“You forget I was witness to your behaviour after you learned the contents of your father’s will,” said Jaggers. “You were grieving, furious. I tried to reason with you, but you met me with the arrogance of a spoilt child.” 

Arthur wrapped one arm around his waist and brought his other hand to his mouth, as he always did when nervous. 

“I wasn’t thinking of her at all,” he said at last. “Only myself and the money. That money was the key to my freedom, you must see that. You know the way I am; you know about your clerk.” 

Arthur paused and Mr Jaggers nodded him on. 

“Money brings privileges. Freedom from marriage. A certain privacy, an immunity from the law. And then that was gone.” 

Mr Jaggers inclined his head in a gesture of understanding. 

“I did not think that she would love Compeyson so deeply. He was only meant to befriend her.” 

“And what of your feelings?” Jaggers said quietly. “Do you love this Compeyson too? For it seems he has seduced you and your sister both.” 

Arthur’s hand flew to one of the freshest bruises on his neck and he looked down. 

“No. It was not like that between us.” 

“But he did this,” said Jaggers and pulled aside the collar of the nightshirt. Arthur looked at him but did not flinch away. 

“Hardly a sign of love,” he said. “Lust, perhaps.” 

Mr Jaggers snatched his hand away.   

“I am sorry,” said Arthur, “I am still a little drunk, I think. I should not be telling you...” 

“Arthur,” said Mr Jaggers, “Did you allow him to hurt you? Or…” he left the rest of his question unspoken. 

Arthur glanced up at him, his face a picture of guilt and misery. He looked down at his hands again, eyes filling with tears. 

“I... if it felt forced I did not feel so guilty for doing it, I felt that it was not my fault. But I wanted it. I let him, gladly.” The tears spilled over onto his cheeks and he scrubbed at them impatiently with the back of his hand. 

Mr Jaggers sat down on the chair by the bed and handed Arthur his handkerchief. How cruel that the boy had been so starved of affection he would allow himself to be ill-used this way. It seemed wrong to let him continue to feel so alone. But he did not know if he had the courage to reveal his own secret to him. The boy was not exactly trustworthy. 

Arthur took a deep breath and stopped crying. 

“You need not live like this you know,” Mr Jaggers said eventually. 

“I do not know how I am to live at all. If I could change my nature I would,” Arthur said. 

“I mean only that you can have companionship without it being miserable and guilt-ridden.” 

“I don’t see how. I disgusted my father, I disgust even myself. And you too, no doubt.” 

And there it was; the self-loathing that twisted inside Arthur, that tainted his every action and thought. Trustworthy or not, Mr Jaggers thought, Arthur’s attempt to harm himself that night had been an act of utter desperation and one that he could not allow to be repeated. No, he could not remain silent. It was his duty to speak. 

“You do not disgust me, Arthur,” Mr Jaggers leant forward until Arthur met his eyes. “Any more than I disgust myself.” 

There, he had said it. Jaggers sat back and watched as his words began to sink in. 

Arthur’s mouth fell open at first. His large eyes went even rounder. He made to speak a couple of times, until he finally managed, “ _You?”_

Mr Jaggers nodded, half smiling at the boy’s incredulity. 

“So when I say that you do not have to live this way, I know what I am talking of. I have had companionship over the years, been quite happy at times,” he said. Arthur stared some more. 

“Have you...companionship now? Is it Mr Tulkinghorn?” asked Arthur. 

“Good God, Arthur!” said Mr Jaggers. Heavens, the idea of _Tulkinghorn_... “Perish the thought. And no, I have no one just now.” 

Arthur reached out and took one of Mr Jaggers’ hands. He turned it over, palm up and fiddled with the cuff-link at his wrist. Mr Jaggers swallowed. 

“So,” Arthur said, in a voice so low it could barely be heard. “Would you. I mean. Have you considered...me?” 

“Arthur.” 

Arthur looked up at his eyes, then down at his mouth, and Jaggers felt lightheaded. But he could not take advantage, it would not do. 

“Arthur, you are my client, and as such I cannot…” 

“I am certainly not your client,” said Arthur. “I cannot afford you.” 

This jolted a surprised laugh from Jaggers. Then he straightened his face. He could not allow Arthur to charm him - well not more than he already had. 

“Besides that,” he continued, “I believe you are not entirely sober. I would not want you to feel coerced. I am older than you and have been in a position of guardianship, and all these things considered…” 

“I had wondered if you _always_ talked like a law book, and it seems that you do,” said Arthur, with some of his old mischievous spirit. And pulling Jaggers forward by his watch-chain, he kissed him anyway. 

For all his youth, Arthur kissed with a passion and urgency that almost took Mr Jaggers’ breath away. His mouth opened under his and oh god, it took every ounce of Jaggers’ iron will to keep his hands on Arthur’s shoulders and not slide them under the nightshirt and touch him everywhere, his chest, his back, the curve of his arse...and Arthur’s tongue was in his mouth now and his hands at Mr Jaggers’ waist and sliding lower, and _Oh, yes._   

“There,” said Arthur, breaking away at last, his lips reddened and his face flushed. “I have wanted to do that for quite some time.” 

“Have you indeed?” said Mr Jaggers, trying to catch his breath, and smoothing Arthur’s curls away from his forehead. 

“I may be an arrogant, spoilt drunkard,” Arthur said, and Mr Jaggers smiled to hear his own words repeated back to him, “But that does not mean I had not _noticed_ you. All your severe looks and intelligence and your neat waistcoats made me think all manner of things about you.” 

“And I would very much like to know those things. But,” said Mr Jaggers. “You must sleep. It is almost morning.” 

“Lie beside me?” 

“I think that would guarantee you no sleep at all,” said Mr Jaggers, and Arthur smiled. “So I will not. But I will stay with you, and I will be here when you wake.” 

Arthur still had hold of his hand and Mr Jaggers let him keep it as he settled back against the pillows. He fell asleep almost instantly, a flush of colour on his pale face. 

Mr Jaggers watched him for a moment or two, and wondered if it was happiness or fear he felt.  He closed his eyes and let his head fall back against the armchair.

  
He could not, at that moment, decide whether he would be Arthur’s salvation or if Arthur would be his downfall.

**Author's Note:**

> Just a bit of post-finale fluff because uuugggh that ending. Plus I wanted to write Mr Jaggers in all his hand-washing, finger-biting glory.


End file.
